


Orchids and Oleanders

by Mcusekat



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Drugs, High School, M/M, Overdose, Suicide, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 12:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2732399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mcusekat/pseuds/Mcusekat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil was poisonous whether he had meant to be or not, which is why he brought white Oleanders. They were poisonous, just like Phil:</p><p>Beautiful, but poisonous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orchids and Oleanders

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a prompt I found on phanfic.tumblr.  
> [Read it on Tumblr!](http://philisnotofire.tumblr.com/post/104474772378/orchids-and-oleanders)  
> Send me a prompt there too if you'd like! It's completely free!  
> 

_“Orchids,” he said, “they represent death.” He pulled the flower from the vase and tucked it behind my ear, smiling the whole time._

Dan hated therapy. He hated the way the woman smiled smugly the whole time he talked to her, the way she kept trying to relate herself to him, and the way she smelled like cigarettes and cheap perfume. He especially hated the waiting room, though. It was plain white with some shitty painting of a field hanging over the hard seats and there were magazines probably from the pre-WWI era sitting on the table next to a vase with some wilted flowers placed in it.

He sat in the far corner of the room with one earbud in, listening for his name. The waiting room was empty, and it was snowing outside. His mother was grocery shopping or something, so she couldn’t stay here with him. He mulled over whether that was a bad thing or not, then decided that he didn’t care and sunk further into his seat.

The doorbell rung and Dan looked up in time to see a boy run in, a cloud of snowflurries chasing behind him. He pulled off his jacket and shook the powder off, then plopped into the nearest seat. Dan smelled whiskey and cigarettes, which was usually off-putting to him, but Dan was nonetheless drawn to this guy.

Maybe it was the eyes. They were blue, but also green and yellow, and wow, he just wanted to stare into them for the rest of his life. He wore glasses, which seemed to accentuate his eyes in a flattering way.

“Hello.”

Dan was blatantly staring, and the boy had noticed. He had said hello, and Dan was just staring dumbly instead of responding.

“Oh—ahem, hello.”  _Oh no_ , thought Dan. He felt himself internally collapse into a condensed ball of awkwardness and stupidity. The boy probably thought he was weird now. He was going to leave and mock him to his friends.

The boy grinned and extended a hand. “My name is Phil.”

After exchanging greetings, Phil moved into the seat beside him. They talked about everything, and Dan found that Phil had all the same interests he did. It was meant to be, he thought.

“Do you know what kind of flowers these are?” Phil asked, pulling his carton of cigarettes from his pocket. He pointed the white toward the vase with the drooping purple flowers.

“No,” Dan replied.

“Orchids,” he said. “They represent death.” He plucked one and tucked it behind Dan’s ear, smiling.

The nurse called Dan first. Phil stopped him then pulled his sketchbook from his backpack and tore off an end. He wrote down his cell phone number and tucked it into Dan’s pocket.

“Call me anytime, please.”

_Phil kissed me hard, like he’d never kiss me again. I think sometimes he thought he wouldn’t._

Phil took him all over town. Phil had a beat up old car with threadbare seats that groaned when he turned it on, but he was proud of it. Frankly it terrified Dan, but he eventually learned to love it.

It was, after all, where he’d had his first kiss.

It was late, and they were both drunk with wine taken from Phil’s mum’s liquor cabinet. They were sitting in the back and watching the stars from the sun roof. Dan was ranting about something existential, about how space made him feel insignificant and small. Phil was holding the bottle in one hand and tracing Dan’s fingers in the other, listening to Dan’s voice distractedly.

“I don’t think you’re insignificant,” Phil cut in.

“But I am. I mean, I’m like a flea—no, a mote of dust—in this galaxy of dust.”

“No, you’re like a star, a bright, beautiful star lighting up the void of the universe.”

Dan sighed, looking away in disbelief. Phil ran his hand through Dan’s hair and pulled his face back to him gently. He kissed him slowly at first, then hard, and Dan could only grasp Phil’s hoodie and pull him closer. “You’re so important, Dan. To me, at least.”

The way Phil looked at him after that made him believe it.

That night, Phil took him back to his house and they fucked. It was slow and romantic, they were drunk, and Dan woke up with Phil clinging to him in his sleep.

_My mum asks me about Phil a lot. I’m rarely ever home anymore and I come back home smelling of cheap whiskey and cigarettes and sex. Everything is declining—my grades, my relationships—but I’m feeling better than I’ve ever felt before._

Before he met Phil, Dan had had friends, several of them actually, but his ties with them had dwindled. After school, Phil picked him up and took him to his apartment where they watched movies, drank, and had sex until Dan’s mum called him back home, never lingering behind to stay with his friends. They gave up on trying, eventually, accepting that Dan had other things to tend to. There was no time for them.

She always asked him where he was, and he’d slur some bullcrap until she left him alone. He sometimes heard her crying in her room, and he would feel guilty, but then Phil would call him and he’d distract him for a few hours.

“When you leave high school,” Phil would whisper to him, like it was their little secret “I’ll become a big-time film maker and you can pursue writing and we’ll move to London and we’ll be okay.” Phil told him of the future in a faraway voice, all wist and hope.

Dan was just young enough (and drunk enough) to believe him, to believe the words he slurred drunkenly drunkenly into his ear.

Despite all this, Dan felt great. He was happy with Phil. Phil never lied to him or forced responsibilities on him. Phil loved him as he was, and he respected him, and that was all he’d ever wanted. Phil never left him alone.

Phil loved Dan, Dan loved Phil, and that was all that mattered.

_White Oleanders were poisonous. I felt like that was fitting, as Phil was poisonous too._

Phil loved anything that numbed his mind, so Dan wasn’t surprised when he learned Phil was addicted to painkillers. It did come as a surprise, though, to learn that Phil had overdosed on them.

Dan was devastated when he heard the news. Phil’s mum called him late at night, and Dan ran to his house in his sweats. The sirens were blurs of colours and sounds, and Dan couldn’t breathe. He fell to his knees on the steps and a police officer drove him home.

The entire month, all he heard were distant echoes. All he saw was pale blurs.

Besides Phil’s and his own parents, no one else attended Phil’s funeral. Dan hated that. He thought Phil deserved for everyone in the world to attend his funeral. He thought the Queen should he here, honoring Phil, but Dan wasn’t dumb. Phil was bad, and not in the good way. Phil was poisonous whether he had meant to be or not, which is why he brought white Oleanders. They were poisonous, just like Phil:

Beautiful, but poisonous.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Flowers Are Poisonous, Just Like Him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805113) by [TheAllShipperKAZ2Y5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllShipperKAZ2Y5/pseuds/TheAllShipperKAZ2Y5)




End file.
